Day 24 prompt is here: Tell us a story set around the worst accommodations you’ve ever stayed in.

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I have asked Alex to chime in on this one. And we both agree: Dominik Panzio, Budapest (before it was renovated) and Cabana Zeni, Straja were the most horrible accommodation we ever ended up in.

DOMINIK PANZIO – BUDAPEST
Website
Address: 1146 Budapest, Cházár András utca 3.

Close to Keleti pu, you’ll find this low cost, low service accommodation option in Budapest. Aside from the good location – if you need to travel by train or need to connect to the airport – there isn’t much to rave about this place.

The good: close to Keleti, from where you can take metro line 2 to the city center; hot water; heated rooms; free towels and linen; free wi-fi (if it works and only in the lobby); the breakfast (3 euros) is ok if you are a meat eater.

The bad: in December 2011, horrible toilets: the doors don’t close, the toilets are flooded, but things got fixed by December 2012; 10 a.m. check out and no storage room available; the wi-fi when it gets overloaded with users (as in 4 users) it doesn’t work; the noise: if someone slams a door, you’ll hear that regardless of where you are in the hostel and the staff: one of the guys at the reception was so bitter I could swear he ate a bunch of lemons before coming to work.

Alex’s first impression of the place wasn’t too good as it is housed in a school dorm. And he saw that note on the building. Then we found our way to the reception desk. Since English was an issue for the guy at the desk, I asked Alex to speak Hungarian…and I think the guy got offended because he wasn’t nice to us, at all, during the stay.

Our double room from the reservation was actually a twin room. No, he didn’t bother to tell us at the reception. At least in the morning wi-fi was good enough to use Skype to call back home. Not so much in the evening when 4 users were enough to make the wi-fi crawl to a stop.

We ended up switching rooms with our friend who got to the hostel a night before via London; he got the double, of course.

After a day in the city I was very tired and slept like a baby. And the toilet was fixed by morning. I was still afraid to lock the door though after Alex’s experience of having to break his way out of the men’s toilet.

But morning came with a bitter surprise. The 3 euros breakfast was a joke: some slices of swiss cheese and 4 type of ham and salami to choose from, margarine, several types of pate and jam. Only white bread, (not so strong) coffee, tea , milk and various types of cereals along with two types of juices. The guys were totally fine with it, while I was fuming. I appreciate variety – say how about some yogurt? – and I enjoy a good, strong coffee.

The 10 a.m. check out was the crappiest thing, though. It forced us to leave the hostel early and they didn’t have a storage room either.

I gave our experience here 3 out of 5 stars. However, as my friend put it, for 21 euros a night you cannot expect much. Quite sad, if you ask me. But it didn’t stop us from coming back in December 2012 for New Year’s Eve. Still, after that we vowed never to stay there again.

Excerpt from my writing project aka book titled Exploring Europe Together – A Couple’s Guide to Europe, Chapter 23, 2013-2014

As for Straja, I detailed the experience in another post responding to another #indie30 prompt.